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“What To Do if Your Partner
is Cheating”
By Susie and Otto Collins, Relationship Coaches
Many relationships
break up because one or both people are
cheating
in one way or another. They are going outside the relationship for
what
they perceive is lacking with their partner. Whether it’s an internet
romance that involves no physical contact or an
actual affair, the result
can be same when it’s discovered.
If you think your partner is cheating or have reason to
believe that he or
she is cheating, you are probably feeling betrayed and are
wondering
what your partner’s secret liaison has that you don’t have. You
probably
have a
broken heart and are wondering whether you need to breakup or
get divorced.
There are six tips that are important to know when dealing
with an affair
that threatens to tear your relationship apart. These tips are
areas that you
must deal with in order to heal, let go and move on to creating
more love
in your life.
With that being said—here are the six tips:
Tip #1: If there has been
infidelity and your partner was the one who was
unfaithful, make sure that
you give yourself permission to be angry without
actually hurting yourself or
your partner. Take the time to figure out how the
relationship went wrong and
what you might have done differently. In many
cases, infidelity and
affairs would never happen if people understood how
each person sabotages
the relationship. Because people don’t take the time
to figure out what their
part was when their partner has had an affair, no
learning takes place and if
they get into another relationship, it just happens
again. If
you simply stay in being a victim, you are doomed to keep repeating
this
relationship dance again and again.
Tip #2: Both of you need to decide whether there is enough
love and desire
between you to begin to rebuild your relationship or move on
separately and
begin
dating other people. In order to make the best decision possible, you
need
to take time for yourself and answer questions that will tell you whether
you
want to get a
divorce or not. If your partner decides that he or she clearly
wants to be
with you, you have to decide if you can forgive them. Forgiveness
is complicated
and doesn’t mean that you condone what happened. It just means
that you are
willing to start over and not carry the past into your future. If your
partner
cannot clearly decide whether to give up the affair or not, then you have
a
choice to make about what you want for you experience with a partner.
Tip #3: If you decide that there is enough love and desire
between you to begin
to rebuild your relationship, you need to figure out what
the key issues are that
separated the two of you. If you had
jealousy issues in the relationship, you need
to
overcome jealousy before you can heal this relationship or even move on to a
new relationship. You may have been in a series of past relationships where your
partner cheated on you. You may have low self-esteem issues. You may have
had
a habit of
flirting with people other than your partner to get your partner’s
attention. Whatever the reason, jealousy eventually tends to destroy
relationships
and the time to heal it is now. Take the time to identify your
jealousy issues and
to actively begin to learn strategies that will help you to
overcome this monster
that tears up any relationship.
Tip #4: Identify what it means to make amends in the
relationship and then begin
doing those things. This is absolutely necessary if
you are to build
relationship trust.
When there has been an affair and you have been hurt,
it’s often difficult to open
your heart one more time. Take the time to begin
learning to trust again and that
begins with learning to trust yourself first.
Begin identifying what both of you are
willing to do to start to build trust
with each other.
Tip #5: Begin actively doing things to heal your
broken heart. When a relationship
has experienced one person having an
affair, it’s often tempting to wallow in your
pain and to continuously blame the
other person. While it’s important for you to
allow yourself to grieve and to
feel pain, it’s also important to begin looking at your
situation with realistic
eyes. What does each person want at their core? It’s
important to be proactive
instead of static or frozen.
Tip #6: If there is a problem with your
love making, fearlessly and honestly tackle
that issue. If you have decided
to give it a shot at rebuilding your relationship, you
can have it as your
intention to have more connected love making but unless you
address the reasons
that infidelity happened in the first place, the relationship will
not have a
chance to succeed.
In order to heal and move on from an affair, you have to
begin envisioning what
you want for your
romantic relationship. We’ve found that when you have a clear
idea about
exactly what you want in your relationship, you can create a
soul mate
relationship.
There are many
free relationship advice resources that deal with helping you get over
the
damage that an affair causes. We suggest that you do some reading and then
begin shaping your life the way you want it to be. Our love advice to you is
don’t
automatically get out of the relationship but take some time to figure out
if your relationship
is worth saving and if you both want to rebuild it. |
